


close calls, almost-falls

by cinderrain



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: (maybe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, M/M, Mind Control, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 15:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14335137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderrain/pseuds/cinderrain
Summary: He blinks, and in the next second Kanda is suddenly closer.“Whoa!” Lavi dodges -- more so stumbles back, and Mugen leaves a gash in the tree where he’d been standing. “Yuu? What --”





	close calls, almost-falls

**Author's Note:**

> Written (very late) for [LaviYuu Week 2018.](https://laviyuu-week.tumblr.com)  
> Prompt: Lightning | Darkness, Energy, Danger, Tension, Evanescent

It’s only a level two akuma, but _damn_ it’s a pain to fight. It circles just out of range as Lavi and Kanda are preoccupied by the level three and the other level two, but its ability has an area that can reach to affect them. It’s something emotional, Lavi thinks, a low-level paranoia -- his eye catches something over his shoulder and he turns on instinct, sure that a threat is somehow behind him, and he’s thrown off his feet and into the trunk of a nearby tree by the level three. 

Hypervigilance might be a trait cultivated in exorcists, but it isn’t doing him any favours right now. 

He takes this moment, with his back against something solid, to catch his breath and size up the battle. In the space of two seconds, he sees Kanda’s eyes widen as he notices Lavi’s absence. Lavi stumbles forward, mouth open to warn Kanda, but it’s too late: as Kanda spins around to search for Lavi, the level three lunges and its left arm punches neatly through Kanda. 

Lavi screams.

The paranoia-effect combines with his Bookman memory to give him flashes of gruesome possibilities: Kanda, eyes empty, dying on the ground; Lavi himself being run through a second later. He blinks the false images away. Kanda’s still on his feet, the akuma having backed up in the meantime. There’s no blood, no evidence of any physical wound. 

This is almost worse. Lavi freezes in place, waiting, while his traitorous brain cycles through horrifying potential powers for that level three to have. 

He blinks, and in the next second Kanda is suddenly closer. 

“Whoa!” Lavi dodges -- more so stumbles back, and Mugen leaves a gash in the tree where he’d been standing. “Yuu? What --”

Another attack that he barely manages to parry with his own Innocence. He’s backing into the trees, unwilling to let the akuma out of his field of vision, even if they... appear to be doing nothing? The more pressing matter: Kanda keeps attacking, and finally Lavi catches a glimpse of his face. It’s blank. There’s not a hint of recognition, not even as Lavi keeps pleading. 

Mind control, then. Lavi shuts up and saves his breath. He needs his full concentration here. Even against the akuma, he could spare a little to banter, keep up the persona, but he knows Kanda and he knows his own limits. He might die here.

The blade nicks him in the ear. Shit. There’s getting to be less  _ might _ about it. He’s sparred with Kanda, and he’s pissed him off so many times. He’s really getting to appreciate how much Kanda held back, even that one time he accidentally made him drop his soba. Lavi trips over a root, and he hisses as Kanda catches him in the arm. 

The blood trickles down, warm and slippery, and he passes his hammer to his other hand so he doesn’t drop it. (He might be ambidextrous holding a pen, but fighting’s another thing entirely.) 

He can hear Bookman in his head,  _ why aren’t you fighting back _ , but he’s just. He’s watching for an opening, he wants to make sure the level three’s ability doesn’t wear off with distance, he’s making  _ sure _ \--

Kanda gets him in the side, slicing deep, and Lavi goes down. He has no idea how to fight him, there’s the truth old man, he can’t take Kanda down dead or alive. He scrambles in the dirt, pushing desperately with his feet, trying to get away without getting up. He rolls out of the way of another attack, and all his wounds twinge. 

In his panic he backs himself up into a corner, two trees and a bush, growing too closely together. There’s nowhere left to go. He’d barely registered the level two following them, laughing along, but now it makes its presence clear. Another flash of horrible what-if: the sword pinning him to the tree by his throat, his own body slumping over, Kanda snapping out of it and --

One last rush of  _ I want to live _ has Lavi lifting his good arm, bracing Ozuchi against the tree, and slamming the hammer-end into Kanda’s chest. The point at the end buries itself between Kanda’s ribs, and in three and a half seconds it slams home in a tree a good few half-dozen meters away. 

Fuck. “Yuu?” Oh god. Lavi shrinks Ozuchi to free it from Kanda, staggers to his feet. Approaches, unthinking, and kneels at his side. 

“Fuck off,” Kanda spits. “I’m fine. Watch your back.”

Lavi spins around in time, and sets both level twos ablaze. He hears Kanda coughing up something wet behind him, and tries not to look down at the spreading pool of blood. He said he’s fine. The battle’s still going. 

Kanda doesn’t miss the way that Lavi flinches out of the way when he raises Mugen to attack the level three, but there’s no room for that conversation in the middle of a fight. He just shoots Lavi a glare that says don’t think he won’t remember, and surges off to fight the level three. 

Lavi, the not-superhuman half of this team, leans against a tree trunk and tries not to bleed out. God  _ damn _ , that last cut went in deep. 

 

On the way back, Lavi thinks. It never doesn’t suck to see a teammate wounded, whether or not he has to pretend it does or doesn’t. It’s extra terrible to have to fight a friend. But that back there was both those things and something else, a realization that -- if Lavi had had it earlier -- would have made him hesitate even between certain death and attacking Kanda. 

That back there hurt too much, and Lavi’s not completely oblivious. 

He’s in love with Kanda Yuu. 

 

Not great. Not the best situation, all told. Especially when Kanda all but forces himself into Lavi’s room after dinner, after they get back, and glares him down. Lavi almost forgets what they could possibly have to talk about, but then he moves too fast and his injuries remind him. 

“Why didn’t you fight back earlier?” Kanda demands. 

Oh, wonderful. Getting straight to the point of a thing he doesn’t want to discuss, at all, ever. “Yuu --”

“You were holding back, you idiot,” Kanda snaps, not letting Lavi finish.

“I was trying not to die!” Lavi snarls back. “It’s not that complicated. I wasn’t doing fucking calculus about when and where and how to  _ crush your rib cage _ .” 

“I could’ve taken it, anyway,” Kanda argues.

“No,” Lavi stresses. Kanda opens his mouth to argue and he stares him down. “ _ No _ . Just because you would’ve survived it doesn’t make it okay!”

He almost keeps going, but he shakes himself. This isn’t how -- he knows Kanda’s frustrated at himself, and he shouldn’t have let Kanda rile him up. 

“Look. Yuu?” Lavi chews on his lip. “Kanda. Can I tell you something?”

That got his attention. 

He’s not sure how to proceed, though. A dozen different sentence starters form and re-form in his head. Maybe it’s the stress, or the adrenaline from their argument, or maybe neither and he’s just been waiting to do this, but Lavi gives up and kisses him. 

After a few seconds, he lets up and watches Kanda’s surprise. (It’s stupid, his heart’s going faster than it did during the battle. It might just be quiet enough here, nothing else to focus on while he waits.)

Kanda blinks. “That’s it? I thought you already. Knew.” He trails off, clamps up. 

“Knew?” Lavi’s turn to be surprised. “Knew what?”

Kanda doesn’t answer, instead turns toward the door, but Lavi’s already busy turning it over in his head. 

“Knew... you liked me.” He looks up, to see if he pieced it together right, and he’s met with the unexpected image of Kanda blushing. “You liked me?”

“Fuck off.”

Lavi grins and kisses him again. The rest of his problems can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is late, poor planning on my part! I hope you enjoyed it anyway.


End file.
